• According to a report by Shanghai's Oriental Outlook Magazine (found via NTD TV), "a multi-million dollar compensation fund for babies who were sickened by melamine-tainted milk three years ago has been kept secret." WHAT!
• Five of seven recently banned food products were for weight loss (while two others also claimed to contribute to weight-loss by regulating "blood fat"). These products contained illegal additives that could cause high blood presure, accelerating heartbeats, anorexia, insomnia and liver function disorder)... sure, but how ELSE are we supposed to get skinny?
• Even as China’s population ages, research has shown that it’s still too early to relax the One Child Policy.
• Eleven people have gone on trial for the manufacturing and selling of a fake eye medication that caused adverse reactions in 61 victims.

The fourth annual "Chinese Bridge" US High School Student Chinese Speech Contest took place this past weekend at the University of Massachusetts. High school students from 21 states took participated in song, pronunciation, and dialogue events that were graded by a panel of Chinese language teachers and native speakers. Students with higher abilities were graded on individual speeches on self-selected topics. The American students opened the competition with a rousing rendition of "北京欢迎你," ("Beijing Welcomes You"). We're happy to see so many young people taking an interest in the Chinese language, but we couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of a young Bostonian with a thick Bean Town accent talking in a learned Beijing accent. That would be wicked pissah-儿！ more ›

The Germans and their notoriously risque advertisements may have bitten off more than they can chew with Doc Morris Pharmaceuticals' most recent condom ads. more ›

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' annual rankings for China's most competitive cities are out and Shanghai's gotten the bronze once again, coming behind Hong Kong and Shenzhen for the third time in three years. Drats! But officials in the 'Hai said that the CCP's plan to boost Shanghai into a global financial center by 2020 would definitely improve its chances for next years' rankings. Hopefully so! While Shanghai might be up there with the crème of the crop in China, compared to the rest of the world, all three cities are still lacking. Hong Kong was only listed at 26th in last year's Global Urban Competitiveness Report and Shanghai at 41st. Shenzhen, strangely enough, was placed even lower (at 64th), calling into question the different ways China and the rest of the world justifies competitiveness. more ›